Lot 7
  • 7

Dawit Abebe

Estimate
5,000 - 8,000 GBP
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Description

  • Dawit Abebe
  • No. 2 Background 5
  • signed and dated 2006 (lower centre)
  • mixed media painting
  • 150 by 130cm., 59 by 51in.
  • Painted in 2014

Provenance

Kristin Hjellegjerdge, 2014
Acquired from the above by present owner

Exhibited

London, Saatchi Gallery, Pangaea II: New Art from Africa and Latin America, 2015, illustrated in the catalogue p. 12

Condition

Examination under UV shows no evidence of retouch or repair. To the back of the figure, specks of white paint appear to be artist intent, as visible in the catalogue illustration. Overall, the work appears to be in good condition.
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Catalogue Note

No 2 background 5 is part of the Background series by Ethiopian artist Dawit Abebe, which features a range of subjects stiffly positioned with their backs to the viewer. Set in an urgently orange coloured scene, the subject of this work holds a note written in Amharic including the numbers 2 and 93626.

The notes are a collage of recycled documents which the artist gathers in Addis Ababa. These reused texts are a combination of old invoices, newspapers reports, and ancient Amharic records discarded by government offices. In examining these texts, the viewer observes fragments of the complex socio-political histories in Ethiopia.

Dawit Abebe’s work has been acquired by the Barjeel Art Foundation, the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, the Frank Cohen Collection, the Carole Server and Oliver Frankel Collection, and the Saatchi Gallery Collection.